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Hello Luis,
the challenge is that nat gas consumption is very seasonal, with the highest demand/consumption during the heating season (alternatively huge and expensive storage facilities to keep the LNG at a steady year round flow).
This could suggest even more LNG tankers than your "back of the envelope" estimate.
A factor of 2 perhaps 3?
Alternatively more storage capacity for LNG.
Just my $0,02.
NGM2
Yes, depending on which country we are talking about, but a factor of 3 seems exagerated.
Gas storage has been done on salt caverns, empty aquifers and other natural structures. The problem as usual is the size of the methane molecule.
Luis,
Nat gas storage is now done both in salt caverns and previous nat gas fields (ref. Rough in UK).
You are talking about LNG (Liquified Natural Gas); which is mainly methane (CH4) that is liquefied, i.e. cooled down to approx minus 163 centigrades before shipment. LNG needs regasification plants. It is possible to store LNG, but these facilities (and the regasification facilities) are expensive and subject to a high NIMBY factor. Of course you could ship LNG and store it close to the consumers during the summerseason, reagsify it, compress and store it in salt caverns/previous nat gas fields.
This adds to the cost and complexity of the supply chain, and more importantly reduces the amount of useful energy available as these are also energyconsuming processes, which of course adds to the required import volume of LNG.
Still a factor of close to 3 seems reasonable to apply to your “back of the envelope” estimate above.
Do you have any reference to nat gas storage in “empty aquifers”?
So far the size of the methane (CH4) molecule has not caused serious problems for storage facilities.
Another $0,02 from me, so now I have in total thrown in..... $0,04.
Rgds
NGM2
I was speaking of storing the at surface conditions. Here's a nice article on the subject:
Natural Gas Storage
I mentioned the size of CH4 because there are always risks of leaks from this kind of storage systems.
One of these days you'll get rich commentating at TOD:E ;)
Seasonal fluctuations in gas demand are in fact a massive problem and are quite complex to model / forecast. Not only do we see a large rise in average winter use (jan) but we also have large fluctuations from day to day depending on weather and temperature. So we need capacity to meet these jan spikes.
LNG supplies only a couple of days short range storage. I think LNG trains are pretty much like a pipeline made up of ships. The controlling rate is the liquification process, so having more ships doesn't really help - but I think in summer a lot of LNG capacity and ships will likely sit idle.
Have you seen this site - lets you see the direction and amount of gas flow through the interconnector. Its cold in England today - so they are importing gas.
http://www.interconnector.com/
Firstly Euan, thx for this brilliant nat.gas update, it makes me start shivering
... may I suggest a woollen blanket for january ? ;-)
b'cus that's how the northern Indians survive the cold season … In Delhi the temperature may creep down to just above zero centigrade in dec/jan overnight …
We can (in these times of change) not expect to scale anything to meet any particular peak-time situation IMO.. You know, that I know, that you know this :-) The trouble is those other folks .... who expect a hot indoor january with a cup of freshly made chocolate
Euan,
LNG trains and the carriers are very much to compare with nat gas in pipeline(s).
Actually to serve the huge seasonal demand/consumption with LNG would reqiure that the shipment capacity was approx equal to the liquification capacity.
In other words more LNG trains and ships, of which perhaps 60 - 70 % were idle during the summer season. This is of course costly and energy consuming.
The challenge with LNG is how to design for the huge seasonal swing in consumption.
Present in the UK there is a base load of domestic supplies and nat gas imports, and peak shaving is done with LNG (ref spplies from Grain) and witdrawals from storage (ref Rough)
The below link gives you all flow in the National Grid in real time (i.e. approx 20 mins delayed).
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Data/EFD/
Rgds
NGM2
Alternatively you can plan to run LNG at baseload (no summer idling) and build enough storage to cater for the summer surplus. This is probably more cost effective than having liquefaction, transportation and regas all lying idle in summer months.
In the UK this would require about 400 BCF of seasonal storage capacity, of which we presently have 120 BCF at Rough, 12 BCF at Hornsea, 10 BCF at Humbly Grove, 4 BCF at Hatfield Moor and 15 BCF coming online at Aldbrough in 2009. This leaves a shortfall of about 240 BCF, which would cost between £1.5 and £3.0 billion, depending on what was built and where. Cheapest is conversion of onshore depleted fields (of which there are plenty), followed by salt cavity, and most expensive is offshore depleted field.
For both types of onshore storage there are huge problems in the UK: NIMBYism, environmental concerns relating to brine disposal for salt cavities, planning red tape and delays, which is why companies are thinking about replicating the offshore Rough facility with other offshore depleted fields.